LONDON —  Polio was eliminated from most parts of the world as part of a decadeslong effort by the World Health Organization and partners to wipe out the disease. But polio is one of the world's…

Foreign Affairs European Allies Are Doing America’s Dirty Jobs What is happening in Europe is coming to America. Credit: Thierry Monasse/Getty Images One of my pet peeves is to observe and chronicle how the 200-year idea of “liberal democracy” is disappearing before our very eyes due to the various new social conditions arising from technological innovations. I have written about it several times, but we have added one more data point to the idea that “free speech” as a concept is functionally dead or dying in the Euro-Atlantic. The founder of Telegram, Pavel Durov, was arrested in France on trumped-up charges that his platform “facilitated” human trafficking and pedophilic activity.  I say “trumped-up” because we have seen previous instances of actual sexual grooming and other such criminal deviance on social media platforms before (and even currently), but none of their founders have been arrested. No, the real reason is that Telegram, like X, or previously RarBG, or Pirate Bay, is committed to an old-school, mid-’90s throwback idea of zero censorship and total freedom of speech—a callback to a time when the internet was imagined to be the ultimate high-tech frontier of Utopia. That dream is dead: Durov refused the Europeans’ demands to crack his app, and is now facing the consequences. Tucker Carlson conducted an interview with Durov a while back, and tweeted it out again following the arrest.  Pavel Durov left Russia when the government tried to control his social media company, Telegram. But in the end, it wasn’t Putin who arrested him for allowing the public to exercise free speech. It was a western country, a Biden administration ally and enthusiastic NATO member, that locked him away. Pavel Durov sits in a French jail tonight, a living warning to any platform owner who refuses to censor the truth at the behest of governments and intel agencies. Darkness is descending fast on the formerly free world. Carlson would know. His own life is now on the line: consider that the Department of Justice has begun a broad criminal investigation into Americans who have worked with Russia’s state television networks. This is an easy way to tamp down on any dissenting voices, such as those of Carlson or Elon Musk; if carried out, the effect would be chilling. That’s the aim. The same goes for the anti-X crusade in Brazil and Europe. X is ostensibly the only platform to provide zero censorship, and thus alternative viewpoints. The Telegram arrest is just a practice run.  Consider two questions.  First, if, as the online saying goes, “America innovates, China replicates, and Europe regulates,” then what explains one side of the American political spectrum imitating European-style repression on innovation and freedom of speech? And, second, if there are people who are megarich, worth more than the annual GDP of mid-sized states, and they see huge international institutions trying to harm them, then what’s stopping them from banding together to oppose the very idea of international institutions—in short, from bringing back feudalism? The second question is more relevant, given that, as David Sacks said, “Using allied countries to circumvent First Amendment protections is the new Rendition.” The answers might soon look less than hypothetical. Free speech has never been the historical norm of human governmental organization. Even John Milton’s career took an unfortunate turn after writing Areopagitica, when he became the lead censor for Oliver Cromwell. Every single technological innovation that leads to freedom of expression inevitably leads to more repression and political-theological conflict. The printing press and the wars of the Reformation led to a reactionary backlash. The industrial revolution and telegraphs and rail lines led to the age of power imbalance and then imperialism. Social media and the Arab Spring led to, well, what everyone can see in the Middle East. In short, the idea that free speech can remain neutral, without power behind it, is fallacious; the power will inevitably find enemies. There’s no balance in the world unless provided by a great power. Might is still right. Europe and America are now not even nominally defending free speech and dissent against concentrated power.  Which brings us back to the next hypothetical. If there are phenomenally rich men in the West, who could quite literally buy half of some continents and create armies if they wished, what is stopping them from banding together to bring about neofeudalism? Or simply toppling some governments and taking over? What might the backlash to the backlash look like? The answer will almost certainly be not very nice. If the cycle is from the tech revolution to a dark-age crackdown to global theological conflict to a new social and security architecture, we are perhaps at the second stage. And whatever it is that is happening in Europe is perhaps coming to America sooner than we’d like to think.  The post European Allies Are Doing America’s Dirty Jobs appeared first on The American Conservative.

Politics The Slump The numbers are in and the numbers are grim. Donald Trump can’t catch a break.  Only a month removed from an attempt on his life and the woeful debate performance that forced President Joe Biden off the Democratic ticket, new polling suggests the Trump bump has faded and the Harris waltz is on. Three thousand five hundred registered voters polled by Reuters/Ipsos across an eight-day timeframe made one thing abundantly clear this week—what once looked like an easy climb to the White House has, in the strangest of fashion, become arguably Trump’s toughest challenge yet. Not only is he down by four percent among registered voters (he was down only one percent in July), Harris is suddenly torching Trump in key demographics (women and Hispanics). Harris, who led Trump by nine points among women and six points among Hispanics in July is now up 13 with both demos in August. More troubling, Trump’s lead among voters without a college degree, a demographic he relied on in his 2016 victory, has been slashed by half, from 14 points down to seven.  And Harris has surprisingly—at least for Democrats—brought a fresh air to the race. In March, Reuters found that 61 percent of Democrats were voting for Biden as a means to “stop Trump.” Today’s polling found that a majority of Democrats now say they are voting for Harris, not against Trump. The Vice President’s ascendancy to the top of the ticket has allowed shy Biden supporters to become vocal Harris voters. And it’s not just Reuters confirming the swing. Data firm Target Smart told CBS News on Wednesday that “among young black women, registration is up more than 175%” across 13 states since Harris entered the race.  “I more than triple-checked it,” said Target Smart’s Tom Bonier. “It’s incredibly unusual to see changes in voter registration that are anywhere close to this. I mean, to remind people, 175 percent is almost a tripling of registration rates among this specific group. You just don’t see that sort of thing happen in elections normally.” And if things couldn’t get worse for Trump, Fox News dropped its latest poll Wednesday finding Harris has “closed the gap with Trump in the Sun Belt states.”  “Harris is up by one percentage point in Arizona and by two points in Georgia and Nevada,” noted Fox, whose polling division found one bright spot for Trump, arguing the former president was “up one point in North Carolina.”  Not so fast. Just as Fox News was giving Trump a narrow lead in North Carolina, the Cook Political Report was moving the state from Trump’s camp to a toss-up. A state that Trump led comfortably by a seven-point margin in July’s aggregated polling is now Kamala’s to lose. Even Nate Silver on Thursday afternoon couldn’t overshadow what polls in state after state show—that the numbers have swung, in unison, toward Harris.  Worse yet are the numbers for Trump’s greatest fighters—the Arizonan Senate candidate Kari Lake and North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson.  In Arizona, Fox News finds Lake down 15 points and without a paddle. Phoenix-based pollster HighGround Public Affairs has Democratic challenger Ruben Gallego up 11. Despite a border plagued by drug and human trafficking, the Democrat Gallego is looking at a landslide while Republicans and their tough-on-the-border message are “hemorrhaging support” with Trump and Lake at the top of the ticket.  “The playbook she used in 2022 is not working in 2024,” said Phoenix pollster Paul Bentz in response to the numbers.  In North Carolina too, MAGA’s favorite son appears headed for a substantial loss. Though Trump and Harris are running neck to neck in the Sun Belt state, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson is viewed unfavorably by more than half of the state’s voters, and polling aggregate FiveThirtyEight finds Robinson reliably losing the governor’s mansion by a wide margin. And it’s not just the polling numbers that will have Trump heated over the Labor Day weekend.  His social media app Truth Social is a digital graveyard, so much so that the former president has begun posting campaign ads and statements to his ? account. The stock price of Truth Social ($DJT) sank below $20 a share on Thursday, its lowest since going public and a far distant cry from its eye-watering $94 price tag in October of 2022.  Amidst all of it, there was Trump on Wednesday resharing QAnon posts calling for military tribunals and “The Storm.” And although his allies in Congress and his political aides have publicly asked Trump to steer clear of personal attacks on Harris, Trump lobbed one of his most violent ones yet yesterday, suggesting that both Harris and the former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton only achieved their positions of political power via sexual favors.  Then, there was the incident at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday.  What had at first appeared to be Trump’s finest moment of the week—a lockstep salute honoring the fallen U.S. service members who were killed during Biden’s botched withdrawal of Afghanistan—ended up being marred by controversy and made headline news for all the wrong reasons.  “An ANC [Arlington National Cemetery] employee who attempted to ensure adherence to these rules was abruptly pushed aside,” read a tersely-worded statement by the U.S. Army on Thursday about the Trump campaign allegedly violating restrictions on using footage from the cemetery.  “This was unfortunate” continued the letter which claims Trump staffers “unfairly attacked” a worker who attempted to stop staffers from taking images that could be used in political ads. The Trump team later released a controversial video of his appearance on the former president’s TikTok account. (The clip has since raked up more than nine million views.) A spokesperson for the U.S. Army reiterated in the statement that the Trump camp had been previously made aware of “federal laws that clearly prohibit political activities on cemetery grounds.” Trump campaign manager Chris LaCivita, whose job security has been the source of speculation as Trump struggles on the trail, posted a video Thursday of Trump at Arlington. LaCivita doubled down: “Hope this triggers the hacks at SecArmy.” So has been the trials and tribulations of Donald Trump these last few weeks as head into the final barrel roll. The bounce he hoped to win from Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s (sort-of) exit from the race remains questionable as the independent presidential candidate has been unsuccessful in removing his name from several all-critical battleground states he promised to abandon.  “Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fought to get onto NC’s ballot,” read the headline from NC Newsline. “Now he can’t get off.” And it’s not just North Carolina where Bobby can’t get off the ballot. In a cruel twist of irony for everyone involved, Kennedy looks set to remain on the ballots of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota as well.  Trump still has the time and opportunity to turn things around but it’s difficult to deny the aspects of the 2024 race which now appear clear—if he is to win it, again, it will be Trump the underdog. The post The Slump appeared first on The American Conservative.

Foreign Affairs The Growing Rift in the Latin American Left Nicaragua’s Ortega attacks Petro in Colombia and Lula in Brazil. Credit: image via Shutterstock The repercussions of the July 28 election in Venezuela continue to grow, as President Nicolás Maduro’s refusal to release the ballots from the election to certify the vote count announced by Venezuela’s National Electoral Council has driven a wedge into relations in what was once a relatively closely aligned bloc of left-wing Latin American nations. Daniel Ortega, the president of Nicaragua and a close ally of Maduro in Venezuela, on Monday sharply criticized Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro and Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for their continued insistence that Venezuela release proof of Maduro’s victory in July. “If you want my respect, you will respect me, Lula. If you want the respect of the [Venezuelan] people, you will respect the victory of President Nicolás Maduro, instead of being dragged around,” Ortega said. “Petro? What can I say with regard to Petro? Poor Petro… Petro, I see as competing with Lula to see who will be the leader to represent the Yankees in Latin America.” Petro responded with a broadside of his own the next day. “Daniel Ortega has said we are being ‘dragged around’ just because we want a peaceful and democratic negotiated solution in Venezuela,” he wrote in a post on X. “At least I do not drag through the dirt the human rights of my country’s people, much less those of my brothers in arms and my companions in the fight against dictatorship.” Ortega’s angry outburst follows a joint effort by the two countries to gingerly renegotiate their relationship with Maduro. While Ortega, Petro, and Lula—along with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico—have traditionally supported Maduro against the more right-wing governments of the region and what they perceive as the hostile interests of the United States, Maduro’s doubtful reelection and his increasingly harsh repression of the Venezuelan populace have precipitated a rift between the authoritarian left of Maduro and Ortega and the more democratic left of Lula and Petro. In many ways, it is not surprising that the Brazilian and Colombian leaders would wish to distance themselves from the increasingly violent and unstable Venezuela. Both countries have suffered serious disruptions from fleeing Venezuelan refugees, whom Maduro refuses to allow to be deported back into the country. Moreover, linking domestic left-wing political movements with the situation in Venezuela is a losing proposition.  Petro in particular is in a precarious place. He is already considerably unpopular in Colombia, where conservatives consider him a traitor and appeaser for negotiating with the guerrilla narcoterrorists that infest the Colombian selva. This is a golden opportunity for him to burnish his democratic credentials and unchain himself from a sinking and regionally unpopular government. The same rationale goes double for relations with Nicaragua’s Ortega, who has gone on a campaign of brutal retaliation and suppression in the past several years. The Catholic Church has been a particular focus of Ortega’s ire, after it supported protests against his government in 2018. Since then, 20 percent of the nation’s priests have been killed, imprisoned, or exiled—including nearly a score just this month. Hundreds more of Ortega’s political opponents were jailed leading up to and subsequent to the 2021 national elections, which—like the recent Venezuelan elections—were of doubtful legitimacy. Ortega’s attack on the two South American leaders suggests that what was once a relatively robust coalition of left-wing governments in Latin America may be fracturing for good. Maduro now can only count on the support of Cuba, Nicaragua, Mexico and Bolivia. Colombia and Brazil, Venezuela’s most important neighbors, may soon join Gabriel Boric’s Chile as left-wing critics of Maduro. Mexico’s position regarding Venezuela deserves closer attention. Immediately after the election, López Obrador joined Petro and Lula in calling on Maduro to release the ballots from the election. He quickly changed his tune, however, and endorsed Maduro, arguing that he sees no reason not to trust Venezuela’s National Electoral Council. This is a potentially concerning approach, given the president’s current efforts to dramatically rewrite Mexico’s constitution in ways that favor his own political party, including ending the independence of Mexico’s own National Electoral Institute. Continued convergence between Mexico, Nicaragua, and Venezuela should be considered a warning sign for the continued health of the Mexican political system. An authoritarian Mexico, even if it were far less harsh than the current Venezuelan or Nicaraguan governments, would be a major blow to American interests and to our ability to control our southern border. On the other hand, the new distance opening up between Venezuela on the one hand and Colombia and Brazil on the other may provide new opportunities for amicable cooperation with the U.S. Left-wing Latin American governments are often hostile towards the U.S. for its long history of intervention in the region. But, with the specter of worldwide communism long gone, the U.S. should work for positive-sum engagement with democratic left-wing governments where reasonable—particularly as China will eagerly fill the deficit if Americans decline to step up. The post The Growing Rift in the Latin American Left appeared first on The American Conservative.

WATCH: Bill Maher defends free speech, calling the removal of Donald Trump from Twitter like “keeping Pete Rose out of the Hall of Fame.” "If you're a Republican or a Bolsonaro supporter in Brazil, can you say on the site the election is stolen? I think you can and should be able to. That's still opinion. That's still free speech.” Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, was arrested in France for failing to comply with the government's censorship laws. Meanwhile, in Brazil, Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes blocked access to X due to Elon Musk's refusal to remove accounts accused of spreading disinformation and hate speech. Elon better stay put in America. They'll try to arrest him, too. More Stories on @Vigilant_News: Time Magazine Pushes Crazy FAKE NEWS to Combat RFK Jr. Model and Former Dem Embarrasses Woke Mark Cuban with One Simple Question About Kamala Harris Follow @VigilantFox ?

Mistakes can happen. The post The mistake George Martin left on The Beatles song ‘Drive My Car’ first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

One of the cool things about being a biographer with special expertise on a specific subject — in my case, Ronald Reagan — is that readers come to you with all sorts of neat revelations. I’ve published eight books on Ronald Reagan, which I believe is more than any other author. People who know Ronald Reagan usually know me, and they come to me with stories that have never been reported. I could write a separate article on those stories. A few have been quite dramatic, such as my late, wonderful friend Herb Meyer disclosing to me the bombshell revelation that he and his boss, CIA Director Bill Casey, and President Ronald Reagan knew that the Soviets were behind the attempt to assassinate Pope John Paul II on May 13, 1981. What Herb told me in confidence went further than what my dear friend Judge Bill Clark (I was Clark’s biographer) had told me about the shooting. I shared that story here at The American Spectator at the time of Herb’s death. Until then, I could not reveal Herb as my source. The revelations Herb and Bill Clark shared with me ultimately led to my book, A Pope and a President. Speaking of assassinations, there were the revelations shared with me by Ronald Reagan’s pastor at his Presbyterian church in Washington, D.C. The Rev. Louis Evans called me shortly before he died because he wanted me to know some things about the near assassination of Reagan on March 30, 1981. Among the fascinating things that Evans told me was about his meeting with Nancy Reagan after the shooting of her husband. Nancy confided: “I’m really struggling with a feeling of failed responsibility. I usually stand at Ronnie’s left side. And that’s where he took the bullet.” If only she had been next to her husband as he walked to that limousine outside the Washington Hilton, positioned between him and John Hinckley’s pistol, Nancy could have taken the bullet for her beloved Ronnie. She was willing to lay down her life for her beloved. The Rev. Evans told me that after reading my 2004 book, God and Ronald Reagan. I incorporated the touching story into my 2006 book, The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism, which is the basis for the Reagan movie starring Dennis Quaid that releases this weekend. (I also told the story in an op-ed piece for Fox News when Nancy died in March 2016. Megyn Kelly was so moved by the story that she invited me on her show to tell it.) I’m pleased to note that Nancy’s statement about taking a bullet for her Ronnie made it into our movie. It is a touching scene. ‘That Is My Job’ All of this brings me to another nice story that I learned more about only in the last few weeks, after reporting it almost 20 years ago at the close of The Crusader. It’s a wonderful account of a Cold War survivor of communism in the Ukraine and the chance meeting that he and his grandson had with Reagan after their liberation and well after his presidency when the president was in the throes of Alzheimer’s disease. Here was what I knew back then in 2006 and recorded in the epilogue: In the summer of 1997, Ronald Reagan … strolled through Armand Hammer Park near his Bel Air home when he was approached by a tourist named Yakob Ravin and his twelve-year-old grandson, both Jewish Ukrainian émigrés living near Toledo, Ohio. They cheered Reagan as he got near and briefly spoke to the former president, who posed for a picture with the boy, which his grandfather proudly snapped. “Mr. President,” said Ravin, “thank you for everything you did for the Jewish people, for Soviet people, to destroy the communist empire.” The slightly confused 86-year-old Reagan paused and responded: “Yes, that is my job.” That was his job—one he had assigned to himself long ago. And then, after it all, after the task was complete, and after he was permitted, mercifully, a short window of time to comprehend and savor the accomplishment, it all quietly disappeared through the last ten years of his 93 years of life. And then, finally, Ronald Reagan’s time on this earth terminated on June 5, 2004, as he ended that long, quiet drift into oblivion, and perhaps, again, drifted back to the Rock River. The Rock River is a central theme of The Crusader and thus also the Reagan movie, with Reagan’s lifeguard years played terrifically by actor David Henrie. Unfortunately, that scene with Yakob Ravin did not make our script. There are only so many great stories that one film can include and stay on theme. Still, it’s a touching scene that chokes up many readers when they visualize it. One reader called me to say he was on vacation with his family at the beach and was embarrassingly sobbing when he read it. It chokes me up as well. So, I nearly fell off my chair a few weeks ago when my email box suddenly received a photo of that very scene in real life, plus added details over two decades later. Indeed, I can now tell the rest of the story of Yakob Ravin and his grandson, thanks to a reader from Toledo, Ohio named Robert Loeb. Living the American Dream Thanks to Reagan Rob, a certified financial planner who works in Sylvania, Ohio, was likewise touched by that scene. (He actually read about it in my 2017 book, A Pope and a President, where I told the story again.) When he got to page about Ravin and his encounter with President Reagan, Rob was surprised and excited to learn that Yakob likewise lived in Toledo. He decided to try to track him down and found him in an assisted living facility in a suburb of Toledo. Rob informed me that Yakob was alive and well: “He will turn 92 this week and is in reasonably good health although he has faced a plethora of challenges in the past few years, including the death of his wife of nearly 60 years,” reported Rob. Rob was “thrilled to meet him along with his daughter Marina” on June 18. Rob explained that it was Marina’s son who was with Yakob that day in 1997 and got his picture with President Reagan. The son, whose name is Rostik, is now a doctor in Florida. He was 12 years old at the time. “Yakob retold me the story of his chance encounter with Reagan,” said Rob, who pleased the author of the book by telling me: “You had every detail exactly right!” Remarkably, Rob said that Yakob had never seen my book. He wasn’t aware that I had shared his story with the wider world. Rob gave Yakob a copy of the book. Those details were striking enough, but what really got me was that Rob attached a photo of Ronald Reagan’s encounter with the grandson. I never knew that a photo existed. To our knowledge, the photo might well be the final public photo of the private Ronald Reagan before Nancy closed him off from the public due to his slow deterioration from Alzheimer’s. The photo is being published here for the first time at The American Spectator. Ronald Reagan with Yakob Ravin’s then 12-year-old grandson in Toledo, Ohio (Robert Loeb/The American Spectator) Yakob has that photo proudly displayed in his tiny apartment. Little does he know that it is probably the last public picture of The Gipper. That email from Rob was sent on June 20. He closed: “If you’d like any information about Yakob or his grandson, let me know.” To that, I replied, “Yes, thank you, go!” I gave him several follow-up questions, tasking the good man as a research assistant, a job he took up with enthusiasm. Rob’s sleuthing generated key added details, including the exact date of the encounter. It was Aug. 23, 1997. He shared this in a follow-up email that I shall quote in full: Yes, you nailed the quote and the story perfectly! His daughter read out loud that section of your book, and he “said that’s exactly right, that’s what President Reagan said.”  Yakob and his 12-year-old grandson Rostik (Marina went instead to South Carolina) were visiting a friend in California and were just walking in the park when they spotted Reagan. Yakob told me that he felt he had to say something to him. Reagan had 2 Secret Service guys with him, but they let him approach Reagan. After he thanked Reagan, you eloquently stated his [Reagan’s] humble response in your book. Yakob and Rostik then walked away, but after a few minutes he thought he’d ask for a picture. The Secret Service guys told him they didn’t allow pictures, but Reagan overheard him and said, “sure come on over, I’d love to take a picture.” And this is the picture! Rob learned that a few weeks later the local newspaper, the Toledo Blade, did a story about their meeting, which was picked up by the AP wire and various newspapers. That was where I first learned about it. Interestingly, the story almost got much larger exposure. Yakob and his grandson received a phone call from Good Morning America asking them to come to New York (all expenses paid). They were scheduled to do the show on Monday, Sept. 1, 1997, but they learned early that morning that their segment was canceled because Princess Diana had just died in a fatal car crash and the entire show would be devoted to that tragedy. They were thanked and told to enjoy New York. GMA never rescheduled the segment. Rob further added of Yakob: He also talked about leaving Ukraine in 1992, and the trepidation they felt. He was 60 years old, starting over in a new country. This was not to be taken lightly. He spoke English but his daughter (Marina), Marina’s husband at the time, and son Rostik did not speak much English. Marina is a successful nurse today, and Rostik is a doctor in Gainesville, Florida. In Ukraine they were not treated well as Jews, but also his wife’s doctor told her that they should leave Ukraine, because of their proximity to Chernobyl. They only lived about 85 miles away in Kiev and the doctor felt there would be long term health consequences if they stayed. So somewhat reluctantly, they moved to Toledo where they had some friends. They were only allowed to take $200 (equivalent) each and some other stuff that fit in a duffle bag, which he still has. Luckily, he was an engineer and found work right away. Fast forward to today and they all love our country and of course President Reagan and are incredibly grateful he ended the evil empire….. They are incredibly grateful to be here. They still have friends in Ukraine that they worry about. As for Rostik, Rob proceeded to later meet him in Toledo as well. He goes by “Ross.” When Rostik and his family and grandfather came to America in 1992, he spoke almost no English — in fact, the only words he knew were “I can’t speak English.” Now, Rostik is living the American dream. Just as Ronald Reagan would have hoped when he had sought to peacefully liberate the “Captive Peoples,” as Reagan referred to those languishing behind the Iron Curtain in the Evil Empire. I thank them for their witness and story. And I thank Rob Loeb for wrapping it up for me in a splendid bow. We Should All Just Appreciate What Is Good In all, it is a nice, feel-good story, much like the Reagan movie that premieres nationwide in theaters this weekend. That movie is receiving nice reviews from nice people. I’m told that the New York Times and Washington Post both panned it. I’m not surprised. That’s why I don’t read either paper. I prefer to spare myself the agony. What these modern liberals don’t understand is that there was once a time in America when everyone liked the president of the United States, including even the liberals who didn’t vote for him. To quote no less than CBS News anchor (and liberal) Walter Cronkite: “Ronald Reagan is even more popular than [Franklin] Roosevelt, and I never thought I’d see anyone that well-liked…. Nobody hates Reagan. It’s amazing!” That was why Reagan was reelected by winning 49 of 50 states, nearly 60 percent of the vote, and crushing the Electoral College by 525 to 13. There were literally millions of Democrats who voted for him. It was a moment of real unity. Our 2024 Reagan movie shows that rare unity in the 1980s and focuses on the epic achievement of Reagan’s life and presidency: his peaceful effort (his crusade) to undermine Soviet communism, to win the Cold War. That was a truly grand event that no one could or should complain about. If modern liberal reviewers of Reagan can’t celebrate that triumph, well, that’s sad. I suggest they put aside their partisanship and try to like what is good. What Ronald Reagan did was good. Individuals as different as Mikhail Gorbachev, Democrat House Speaker Tip O’Neill, and Pope John Paul II all agreed on that. And if liberals would like a modern witness or two, maybe they should talk to some folks like Yakob Ravin and his grandson. They certainly appreciate Ronald Reagan. And one day in Aug. 1997, they let him know. The post A Moment of Unity: Reagan United the Country Like No Other appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

One of the most striking things about higher education is that many of the world’s greatest geniuses never had much, if any.  Johann Sebastian Bach was 18 years old and never went to school again; his five years in a local gymnasium and a church school were more than sufficient to instruct him in theology and the classical languages, but his real instruction in music came from his elder brother, the church choir, and musicians and organists he met and made music with. (READ MORE: Living Crucifixes: The Phenomenon of Stigmata) Thomas Edison spent only a few months as a small boy in the local public school. He was so disruptive there and so frustrated that his mother decided to teach him on her own. When it came to machines and inventing things, the boy was self-taught. If he were alive today, he would be diagnosed with a brain disorder. Some disorder! It saddled him with distraction from trivialities, while it compelled him to pay entire attention, even to be absorbed to the exclusion of everything else in the world, to what fascinated his mind. We would give young Tom a drug, and that would be the end of Tom the boy inventor. Michelangelo had no formal education at all. He was a boy hanging about the marble quarries of Settignano, an already talented apprentice in the studio of the painter Domenico Ghirlandaio, and a young hanger-on at Marsilio Ficino’s “Academy” on the estate of Lorenzo de’ Medici. There he took part in conversations on Platonic philosophy, and whatever else the members of the informal group were interested in. He did not learn his craft there. Where Are Our Modern Bachs, Michelangelos, and Edisons? We are, to be sure, talking about exceptional men: arguably, the greatest composer, the greatest inventor, and the greatest artist in the history of the world. But we are not talking about exceptional cases. The stories of Bach, Edison, and Michelangelo are repeated, at a lower pitch perhaps, in the stories of countless men of great and dynamic accomplishment who became what they were in spite of their having little or no association with colleges and universities. Many of them left school at a very early age to do what they longed to do. I used the phrase “in spite of,” when I might have written “because of.” In those days, there was nothing on a screen to distract the young mind from its passions or to waste youth and energy on ephemera. The boys developed the ability, early on, to exclude everything from their field of vision but the thing to be mastered, the thing to be accomplished. What would they have done had they had higher education too — or had the world been organized so that they could not work without the paper credentials the colleges sell? (READ MORE: Critics of Lolita Need to Learn How to Read Fiction) Very likely, nothing much. We cannot suppose they would have been more inventive at their work. For now that everybody of at least modest intelligence must go to college, and absolutely everybody must graduate from high school to get a half-decent job, you would think we would meet a Bach, an Edison, and a Michelangelo in every big town and city. After all, near-Bachs, near-Edisons, and near-Michelangelos there were aplenty in those other times and places, many of whom likewise shared the advantage of freedom from the formal school. We had, for example, near-Bachs in America among the big band leaders and composers, very few of whom had a college education. Where are they now? College Is Useless for Imparting Genius This year will be my 40th as a teacher at the college level, 37 of them as a professor of English or Humanities. I love my work. I enjoy being around young people, and I am prompted by the teacher’s characteristic impulse, to show someone else something beautiful or fascinating that he has found. But I am under no illusions about the corruption of the university. Many courses and whole departments are given over not to that impulse but to political or social action, to propaganda in the worst sense; or to instilling in students a hatred or disdain for what past generations — mainly, ordinary people with ordinary sentiments — considered to be good or true. Still other courses and departments are mere credentialing services, enabled by the artificial bottleneck that employment law in the United States has created. To see the bottleneck, one need only ask an obvious question regarding Bach, Edison, or Michelangelo. Who would now hire them? Would Edison be permitted to teach shop in your local high school? Could Bach be hired to compose or conduct music for one of the movie studios, without college credentials?  Could Michelangelo secure a commission as the architect of a new county courthouse, without a degree in architecture? Please do not say that Michelangelo would now need to learn things that can only be imparted in a formal setting. The logistical and material problems that beset him when he worked on the dome of Saint Peter’s Basilica, without our diesel-powered tools, without computer projections, without light but strong metals, were at least as difficult as anything that besets the architect now. If Michelangelo could figure out how to solve problems then, he could figure out how to solve comparable problems now. The Government Shouldn’t Force Employers to Tell Genius Kids to Get Lost Why should there be a bottleneck at all? Here we meet some touchy issues. Suppose that federal and state governments have no say in telling you whom you must hire, either in the individual case or in general. You might then, it is feared, discriminate — but discrimination is, in one sense or another, essential to all evaluation, including that of hiring or not hiring someone. If you are sensible, you will not use as a criterion for discrimination anything irrelevant to the work to be done, in the workplace where it is to be done. That would be like turning away George Washington Carver because of his race. It would be stupid. It would hand a favor to your competitor. But if the bottleneck were gone, you would be free to take credentials for what you believe they are worth and to evaluate talent by your best lights. Millions of people would be freed from having to procure those credentials. (READ MORE: A Sacred Peace: The Promise and Perils of Localism) As I write, a crew of young men from Brazil is at work on my house at a big carpentry and painting job. I am too old now to do many of these things myself, as I used to do, though I could never do the splendid job they are doing. I doubt whether any of the men has formal education beyond high school. Who cares? They are masters at their work. The connection between the hand and the mind is extraordinarily strong so that the more you work with your hands at subtle tasks — such as, to mention a relatively simple thing, cutting a board to fit exactly where it must go, maneuvering it into place, and securing it with nails angled in — the smarter you become. The hands acquire a “feel” for what is right: good wood for this or that purpose, good stone, good metal, good ground. That the imagination works also through the hands, no musician who has composed upon the piano can doubt. But formal education has little to do with the hands. It may well coat the hands in the rubber of verbiage so that they lose their sense of realities. I am not a libertarian. But in this regard, I say it is time to end surveillance over employers as to whom they hire and why so that the Edisons, Carvers, Bachs, and Michelangelos of the world, and all those lesser but still brightly shining lights that are like them, may thrive without having to pay the collegiate extortionist, and without the strong possibility that they will waste or stifle their genius as they muddle through. No more need the employer say, “Get lost, kid. You don’t have the degree.” He might say, “All right, show me what you can do.” The post Get Lost, Kid appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Last week’s Democratic Party joyfest in Chicago opened with the now-obligatory acknowledgment that it was taking place in “indigenous homelands.” It wrapped up with a war party that named Donald Trump as the enemy over 400 times, according to one source. So, it’s altogether fitting that Sen. Elizabeth Warren, ridiculed by Trump as “Pocahontas,” was one of the featured speakers. It was the 4th straight DNC where Warren spewed her socialism. I prefer calling the senator from Massachusetts, “Little White Dove” as I always had an affinity for Johnny Preston’s 1959 recording with the backup singers chanting “uga, uga, uga, uga.” (READ MORE: Five Quick Things: Who Lies About Working at McDonald’s?) As a refresher, the senator’s claims of being either Delaware or Cherokee came into question when the then-Harvard professor was engaged in a tight race for Senate in 2012. It was in 2019 that Liz ended up apologizing to the Cherokee Nation after her self-proclaimed ancestry, checked through DNA, suggested that she may have had a blood relative as far back as 6-10 generations. The Cherokee noted that it required more than self-identifying and a trace of DNA. Does this matter? Not really, except as a check on her character. After all, Warren profited as a self-identified “minority” in her career advancement. Her speech at the 2012 Democrat convention put her on the national stage when she was the introductory speaker for former President Bill Clinton. At that time, she essentially painted her roots as akin to J. D. Vance’s hillbilly. Unlike Vance, she was a hero to the “progressive” wing of the party and her job was to point to Republican and Wall Street greed as part of a rigged system to keep the little guy and the middle class down. Take that, Mitt Romney! We’re coming after you and your big wampum — an Algonquian word. The Warren of DNCs Past The Harvard Crimson, reporting in September 2012, noted about the prime-time speech, “(Warren)… reintroducing herself to a nation as the unlikely Senate hopeful who rose from the lower crust of the middle class.” And that publication, continuing without even a hint of disbelief, noted, “She said that Democrats want to decrease national debt and build a stronger country from the middle class up.” Moving forward with even more national debt into 2016, now a senator and a star, Liz was off of Romney and on the warpath after Trump. Not surprisingly, part of her speech that year in support of Hillary Clinton sounded the same shrill notes against Orange Man. Back then, with Barack Obama still president and Joe Biden nursing his grievances, Little White Dove spoke of the Trump vs. Clinton matchup: “America faces a choice, the choice of a new president. On one side is a man who inherited a fortune from his father and kept it going by cheating people.… A man who cares only for himself — every minute of the day.” (READ MORE: The Trump Revolution) Continuing with the big contrast, “On the other side is one of the smartest, toughest, most tenacious people on the planet — a woman who fights for children, for women, for health care, for human rights, a woman who fights for all of us…” If you were lucky enough to miss it live, you may not have picked up the contrasted “man” vs. “woman” emphasis. Warren remains the belle of the ball to the Marxists in this country. She again spoke at the 2020 DNC, that time as the 3rd place contender for the nomination which was bestowed upon “the dead husk of a moth-eaten sock puppet,” as the great Mark Steyn refers to Joe Biden. Bernie Sanders was ahead of her and Michael Bloomberg and Pete Buttigieg trailed her. Democrat Mooning Shows Contempt for America Fast forward to the present, just last week at her fourth recycling before the Democratic National Convention, Liz had been cut back to a very short speech — about 5 minutes with the extended applause from the rabble in attendance. She began with, “You know what I love best about Kamala Harris? Kamala Harris can’t be bought.” Ouch! Was that aimed at Donald, “the felon,” or a reference to the Biden Crime Family? Judging from the “joy” expressed by the crowd over that and “felon,” we shouldn’t be surprised by her conclusory remarks when she summarized Kamala and the Democrats’ positions: “There it is. Groceries, gas, housing, health care, taxes, abortion.” (READ MORE: America Waited 39 Days for This? The Blah-ness of CNN’s Kamala & Tim Show) So, in homage to a great native American tradition, Little White Dove, Kamala, and the rest of the Democrats just dropped trou (pantsuits are great for this!) and mooned America. As Joe Biden would say, “No joke!” Just north of the state of Massachusetts, there is an account of an early encounter between the Abenaki people — an Algonquian tribe — and European mariners in the critically acclaimed book, 1491, by Charles C. Mann. The author tells the story dating to 1523 as follows. “The Indians denied the visitors permission to land; refusing even to touch the Europeans, they passed goods back and forth on a rope over the water. As soon as the crew members sent over the last items, the locals began ‘showing their buttocks and laughing.’” Mooned as a measure of disrespect. What took place in Chicago was a show of contempt for America. My long-time friend Bob Tyrrell, well known as the Founder of TAS, is fond of quoting H. L. Mencken. None is better than, “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.” The post The Democrats Mooned America From Potawatomi Lands appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.